From the Liveblog of
Saturday, January 27, 2024
On Holocaust Remembrance Day, Putin repeats Ukraine Nazi claims
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Russian President Vladimir Putin says Ukraine “glorifies” Adolf Hitler’s SS killing squads and vowed to “eradicate Nazism,” as he opens a memorial marking 80 years since the end of the siege of Leningrad.
The Russian leader has repeatedly invoked the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in the Second World War to justify his current offensive against Ukraine.
His comments come on International Holocaust Remembrance Day as the world marked the 79th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp during World War II by Soviet Red Army troops.
His charge that Ukraine is a fascist state that needs “de-Nazifying” has been debunked as false by independent experts.
“The regime in Kyiv glorifies Hitler’s accomplices, the SS,” Putin says.
And Russia would “do everything possible to suppress and finally eradicate Nazism,” he adds.
“The followers of Nazi executioners, whatever they call themselves today, are doomed,” he says near Saint Petersburg, his hometown and the modern-day name of Leningrad.
Ukraine, the West and independent scholars have repeatedly rejected Putin’s attempt to cast Kyiv as Nazi sympathizers.
He was speaking at the opening of a new memorial complex to victims of the siege of Leningrad — an event that forms a major part of Putin’s personal identity and one that has totemic importance for millions of Russians.
More than 800,000 people died from starvation, disease and bombardment during the 872-day encirclement by German forces in the Second World War.
Putin had earlier on Saturday visited a cemetery where more than 400,000 victims were buried in mass graves.
The Soviet Red Army broke the siege on January 27, 1944. Although he was born after the war, Putin’s elder brother died of starvation during the siege.
The Times of Israel Community.